May Day Stuff

[DOUGHBOYS]

Well look who is leading baseball in Hits.
It's the same player who has finished first or second in Hits every year since 2014.
Jose Altuve.

By the way, only one player in 2014 had more than 37 homers.
Nellie Cruz had 40.
Four years later, Altuve is still hitting, but so are home run hitters.
Last year, 14 players hit between 37-59 homers.

Ozzie Albies has played in 27 games. He has 22 extra base hits.

April had 30 days.
Didi Gregorius has 30 rbi
His career high is 87.

I had a baseball coach that called us by girls names when we didn't do our job as players.
This one is for you, Mr. Johnson....
We see names like 'R Ray' and immediately know that it is Robbie Ray.
It isn't when I get pissed at him for a bad performance or getting hurt as he is now.
In the Mr. Johnson vein of coaching Robbie Ray turns to 'Rachel' Ray

I've done this with some players owned.
I can see how it made Mr. Johnson feel better.
Of course, nowadays a coach can't run the risk of one of his players telling Mommy that Mr. Johnson called him a girl....

Mrs. Annison (calling Coach Johnson): "Mr Johnson! My little boy Johnny came home crying! He told me that you had changed his name from from Johnny to Jenny!
He has enough sexual awareness problems without you adding fuel to the fire!"

Of course, in the past when Johnny would tell his parents that the coach had called him 'Jenny', the parents would have laughed and told him to play better so that the name, Johnny, would be re-instated....
Anyways, here are a few...


When slumping, J Baez is not Javier, he is Joan Baez.
The middle and older aged players will get that one.

M Olson is Mrs. Olson (older players will remember the Folgers coffee commercials)

E Lauer is Estee Lauder

B Gardner is Begonia Gardner

F Rodney is Freakin Rodney

N Walker is Nancy Walker

Brad Hand is Bad Hand (A Bad job by Hand last night....arrange the words to fit)


Cheats-
JA or Ian Happ is Miss Happ
Chris Taylor is Liz Taylor
Justin Turner is Tina Turner
Greg Bird is Lady Bird

Back to some Stuff....

How would you like to have a pitcher with these numbers....

157 IP, 182 k, 0.917 WHIP, 2.23 ERA, 12 Wins

Those are the statistics of the Big Four of Kershaw, Scherzer, Sale, and Kluber.

Pitchers are getting comfortable in the first round of NFBC drafts....

Scherzer and Kluber own nine of those Wins.

Clayton Kershaw is 1-4

The only pitcher with more losses is in the minors, Kendall Graveman.

2018 Brad Ziegler is to the Marlins as 2017 Alex Claudio was to the Rangers...

Josh Tomlin is not even averaging four innings an appearance.

The innings are eating him....

Tomlin is allowing a run an inning and almost two hits per inning
Sabrs will love that he is walking less than a batter per appearance. Yay Josh.

Alex Colome has five Saves. A 2.17 WHIP, A 6.00 ERA. Yay Alex

Fernando Rodney has a similar WHIP and ERA with just three Saves. Freakin Rodney.

In almost half the innings, a pitcher has more K's than Jose Berrios.
Seriously.
Josh Hader has 39, Berrios 36.

Who has allowed the MOST hits in baseball?
Well, three pitchers are tied.
There is the aforementioned Kendall Graveman who dug his own...ahem...grave and was sent down to the minors.
Then, there is Martin Perz who decided his other arm hurt so he couldn't trhow with his 'good' one.
Then, there is Chris Archer. If Hits allowed were a roto catagory, we could then call him a two-category pitcher.
That was mean.
To be nice, Archer has walked only 11 batters.
Tyler Chatwood has walked more than twice as many.
....Archer's WHIP- 1.59 ERA- 6.61
Chatwood's WHIP- 1.47 ERA- 2.83
The trick is that Chatwood has only allowed one ball to leave the ball park...

Our old Buddy, Josh Tomlin has thrown 18 innings.
He's allowed 10 home runs.
Not joshin'.

10 qualified pitchers have given up just one homer...

Johnny Cueto
Gio Gonzalez
Rick Porcello
Jake Arrieta
Tyler Chatwood
Kyle Gibson
Carlos Martinez
Mike Clevinger
Chris Stratton
Trevor Williams

coincidentally, none of these pitchers have an ERA over 4.00
Only Arrieta, Gibson, and Stratton's ERA is over 3.00

Even if using total bases instead of hits to figure his WHIP, Johnny Cueto's WHIP would still be under 1.000

On the road, Cueto has thrown 20 innings.
Zero runs
Five hits
Two walks

Friday on the road, the pitcher who has allowed the least extra base hits (Cueto) faces the hitter with the most extra base hits (Albies)
Albies has 12 singles and 22 extra base hits
Starlin Castro has 28 singles and six extra base hits (all doubles)

Last year, less than one of every three of JD Martinez hits were home runs...
This year, one of every seven of JD Martinez hits are home runs

Last year, Giancarlo Stanton did not hit in any month with less than seven homers.
He had five in April of this year.
Last year, Giancarlo only had one month with more than 30 (31) strike outs.
In April, he struck out 43 times

Because he is hitting .317, nobody is mentioning that Aaron Judge has only struck out four less times than Stanton...

Yoan Moncada has four MORE strike outs than Stanton. His owners don't care.

These six players qualify with the least strike outs...

Joe Panik
Andrelton Simmons
Alcides Escobar
Max Kepler
Victor Martinez
Corey Dickerson

Strike outs are a necessary evil for our game....
Joe Mauer has struck out 11 times. Walked 23 times.
This pleases sabrs to no end.
Mauer's owners, however, look at the .291/12/0/7/0.
It's fair to expect more for his 23 walks and 23 hits.....


Trea Turner has 33 hits, 18 walks, and 12 stolen bases.
Trea Turner has scored just 14 runs.
Same as Jackie Bradley Jr.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Adding some Stuff and Junk here....

I like the R/HBB stat.
The statistic shows how often a hitter scores after reaching base.
I mentioned Trea Turner and his low Runs Scored.
He scores at a 27 percent clip.
A 14/51 R/HBB rate giving him the 27.4 clip.

Ozzie Albies has a 29/41 R/HBB rate
A 70 per cent chance that Albies scores once he reaches base.

Sabrs love to downplay the run batted in statistic.
They'll downplay the stat and dismiss it as being team or opportunity based.
They do not do this with Runs Scored.
They champion the base on balls.
Yet, Trea Turner is walking and doing everything a sabr loves....except score.
A walk is not as good as a hit.
And as Albies has displayed, a walk is nowhere near as good as an extra base hit.
At least if, you know, wanting your team to score.

Sabrs do not realize that the Run statistic is NOT tied to drawing walks.
It too, is one of team and opportunity, just as the RBI is. The extra base hit, helping both Runs and RBI.

Billy Hamilton has been a horrible ball player.
Just horrible.
Rightly, he has been benched and demoted to the ninth spot in the lineup.
Billy Hamilton has a R/HBB rate of 64 per cent though.
He has scored more runs than Trea Turner.
Turner hits at the top of the order. He has more hits, more walks, more stolen bases, and even 30 more at bats.
Turner SHOULD have more Runs.
He doesn't.
Hamilton has more Runs (18-14).

If Rbi and Runs are both statistics driven by team and opportunity, then baseball has to change.
Here are batters who should be leading off...
Anthony Rizzo
Jose Abreu
Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Judge
Bryce Harper
Charlie Blackmon
Mike Trout

Not only would this help give the best hitters in the lineup an opportunity to create runs for their teams, it would also allow them to do so more often.